Ok, here it is, one of Segas most anticipated Dreamcast
games of all time. Now Sega was on a role on 2000 with such hits
like Jet Grind Radio, Space Channel 5, Sega GT, Skies of Arcadia,
and Virtua Tennis. Will it end the year with a bang with the
action-RPG type game, Shenmue: Chapter 1: Yokosuka? Lets
get onto the review and find out.

The Story

Now I got the American version of the game, and I heard there
are some differences in the names between the American and
Japanese character names. Any ways, The main character of the
game is Ryo Hazuki, and the game starts off in December 1986 with
an evil Chinese villain by the name of Lan Di, murdering
Ryos father right in front of him. Then Ryo goes on a quest
to avenge his fathers death, meeting an exciting cast of
characters throughout his journey and performing many other side
quests.

Graphics

These are, without a shadow of a doubt, the best visuals ever
in a console game to grace my eyes! Yes, better than anything
Ive seen on the technologically better Playstation 2! The
characters are detailed to the extreme. Of course you can tell
they are characters from a video game, but theyre probably
the closest thing to real life youve ever seen. Heck, the
FMVs in the game arent even that distinguishable from
the main game play engine. Talk about great, this is Dreamcast at
its peak in power folks. You can make out the tiniest of
details on all the characters, like the band-aid on Ryos
face, the sunglasses and beads on Tom. The environments in the
game are also another thing to gaze over, youll be
surprised by how realistic all the buildings and surroundings
around you are.

And the animation is just marvelous. I mean, the people
actually look like theyre walking, and the voice acting is
near perfect with the animation of the lips of the people in the
game. Now dont go riding on me after I admit this, but, the
fighting animation for all the moves in here is even better than
the stuff Ive seen in other 3-D fighters like Tekken Tag
Tournament and Dead or Alive 2, and that is because this
games free battle fighting engine is as close to real life
as it gets. All the moves executed by Ryo are fluid, and most
resemble real life moves.

The game has a couple of old emulated arcade games in here
like Hang-On and Space Harrier, and they seem like a perfect
translation. All the menus and sub screens in the game can be
navigated with ease, with no problems whatsoever. The only
problem I had at all with the visuals is that sometimes, while
youre riding the forklift while working at the harbor in
the game, there tends to be occasional slowdown occurring
throughout your work shift. It gets a little bit on the tedious
side, but nothing major.

Sound

Dont get me started on sound! Oh, wait Im doing a
review here, so I guess I have no other choice. The game has some
great, Japanese oriented tunes throughout the game, but
theres also many other tunes that dont sound Japanese
at all. So dont feel like any ethnic races are being left
out at all, theres also many cassette tapes to buy in the
game that have many different variations of music to be found on
there like Rap, Pop, Reggae, and many others. The sound effects
are also done to perfection in the game, you can hear everything
just as it is in real life from walking to rain drops. But the
main thing of interest in the audio department is the voice
acting. It will just simply blow it away! This is nothing to the
crappy voice acting found in other Sega games like Sonic Shuffle
and House of the Dead 2. This stuff is actually pretty good! I
dont know if the voice actors were, or werent, but
most of them sound like they have Japanese accents to me. I mean,
all the characters have voices in the game, and all of them have
many different sayings! Kudos to Sega on the amount of voices
they worked on fitting in the game. This is just the best sound
Ive heard in any game, hands down!

Game play

The game has a unique control scheme. At first, Id
really think you could wander around in 3-D using the control
stick, but instead you got to use the control pad to move around,
it is kind of awkward at first, but youll get use to it;
the control stick is use to rotate the camera around you. You
interact with people and buildings by pressing A, and you run by
holding the L trigger. You can also ride two different vehicles
in the game, which are the motorcycle and the forklift, which are
fairly easy to control. My only gripe with the controls are that
they arent customizable.

The game has a few core ingredients in its game engine. Now
besides wandering around in 3-D, you do get in occasional
battles, and there are two ways of battling. The first one
youll encounter is the Quick Time Event, or more frequently
referred to as QTE, in QTE, you press a certain button at a
precise moment to dodge an object, nail an object, or connect
with a move or your own. QTE is used many times throughout the
game in battles, and other storyline parts of the game.

The other main factor of the game engine is the Free Battle
engine, where you fight multiple foes in a real, 3-D environment,
you can do normal punches and kicks, but by pressing certain
button combinations, you can perform much more powerful moves. As
you progress throughout the game you learn more moves from
different mentors that will help you out later in the game. To
perfect the moves you can practice for a certain amount of time
to perfect them, the more you practice, the more damage your
moves do.

This game also has many side quests for you to do in the game.
Like helping out an injured cat making a healthy recovery and
helping out a bum by getting him a warm beverage. You also got a
plethora of mini games at your disposal with Sega classics like
Hang On and Space Harrier. Plus other games like Forklift races,
darts, and even a slot house.

Replay Value

Well, all the mini games and side quests should give you more
than enough reasons to be playing this game for a great deal of
time. Also if you collect certain items in games you can use the
Shenmue Passport GD-ROM included in the game to exchange the item
for downloadable goodies in the game, or you can do other things
on the passport disc like learn information about the games key
elements from the games characters, and view all the movies
youve seen so far in the game. You can also post your high
scores for certain mini games like Hang On, Space Harrier, and
Darts also here, and visit the official Shenmue web site. The
only downside about the game is that it really doesnt take
that long to beat, like it only took me approximately 25 hours to
beat it my first time through, without any help from strategy
guides at all. But theres more than enough extras here to
make up for that flaw.

In Brief

+: The best visuals and audio in any game ever, The free
battle system is just simply the best thing on earth, lots of
mini games and extras for you to tinker with

-: No customizable control, Game really doesnt take that
long to beat

The Final Ratings Rundown

Graphics: 9.9
Sound: 10
Game play: 9.8
Replay Value: 9.4

Overall: 9.7

Rounded to fit GameFAQs Score: 10

Comments

Guys, this is the best action/platformer/RPG/whatever it is
game on the Dreamcast! Sega did an All-Star job. This is one of
the truly great single player games Ive played in a long
time and shouldnt be passed up. So what are you waiting
for? Go buy this game now!